


Like Peppermint

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Series: Memori Week [5]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Christmas Cookies, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Modern Era, idk what you expected from me, just soft memori, there's literally no plot guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 18:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16560611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: Memori Appreciation Week: Day Seven: Free ChoiceMurphy's excuse for making cookies is that the radio's playing Christmas music





	Like Peppermint

**Author's Note:**

> It's like *months* late, but I'm calling this a part of memori week. Day 7 was 'free choice' and that's what this is--a choice for zero plot and just happy memori

“It’s too early for Christmas music.”

John doesn’t look up and he doesn’t turn down the radio—he might be the only person in Arkadia who still has a radio, antenna and all—at Emori’s proclamation, just wipes a hand under his nose in quick acknowledgement, smearing flour all over his cheek.

“It’s on the radio,” he says absently, flipping back a page in the recipe book.

Not like he’s actually referencing it; in all the time she’s known him, John has never followed a recipe. He keeps it around for the same reason he keeps the radio: it’s how things are supposed to be.

They’re all over their apartment, the little things that John keeps around because they’re things he grew up seeing on TV and not in fostercare, so he piles them around him.

She’s happy to be a part of the new memories.

“Yeah,” Emori wrinkles her nose at the radio, “but they get paid to play it.”

John hums like he hears her, but isn’t doing anything about it.

She doesn’t really mind, and he knows that.

Emori drops her purse by the door and crosses over the barstools opposite the counter. She pulls herself up onto one, resting her elbows on the countertop, watching him.

She could watch him do anything, but cooking is probably her favorite.

With everything else, there’s a distinct carefulness, where he’s focusing so intently, so intensely, to make sure he doesn’t mess up. He’s just waiting to catch himself. But with baking, he trusts. The lines between his eyes ease; his mouth is never fully closed and his lips move, just a little, as he silently talks himself through what he’s doing.

_Fold the flour in, easy now, keep the air in the eggs, slowly, easy, two more turns should do it…_

For a while, it’s just the sound of a wooden spoon in a bowl, and Bing Crosby over the static.

Then Idina Menzel, then Elvis, then Michael Buble, then Ariana Grande, then Bing again.

In the meantime, John has finished what Emori guesses to be macaron batter, and he’s coloring it green, mixing the paste in carefully. Because she can’t resist, she swipes a bit of the uncolored batter.

Raw eggs notwithstanding, she’s still curious.

“Peppermint?” she asks, the smell hitting her before the taste.

John freezes, looking up. “Too much?”

She hasn’t tasted it yet, so she licks it carefully off her finger, considering. It’s perfect, always is, and she doesn’t know why he’s worried.

“Exactly right,” she soothes, sticking her finger back for another taste, just for to prove the point, and his shoulders relax.

“Good,” he says under his breath, looks back down at the bowl, then back up at her, like it’s registering. “You look nice.”

She doesn’t; it’s been a long day at the office and her suit is creased by now, her eyes tired, face worn with grime from the subway.

“Thanks,” she says automatically.

“I mean it,” he says, and the last bit of off-white batter turns green.

“I know you do,” she demures, because she’s sure he does. But in a side by side, she prefers her view: John in the kitchen, flour all over his black pullover, hair kind of floppy because he hasn’t wanted to make an appointment to get it trimmed, sleeves pushed up passed his elbows, fingers probably stained from the dye.

He looks up at her, a long look, like he wants to push it, but then goes back to the bowl.

Then evergreen batter falls into a piping bag, propped in a cup, then perfect little dimes are piped onto a baking sheet. The oven beeps and John drops the sheet against the counter; the kitchen somehow times to _The Carol of the Bells_ on the radio. The oven door opens and shuts, bowls are swept into the sink, the tap comes on and off, and then a damp cloth smooths over the counter.

He’s moving around quickly, Emori’s eyes following him, and she doesn’t realize that he’s working around the counter with a goal in mind, to get to her. John leaves the towel on the counter, a hand coming up to her face to tuck the hair behind her ear. Then his green-stained hands are on the black of her blazer, and she makes a sound like she’s annoyed but he knows she isn’t, because she leans over into him.

“Hey,” he says into her hair, pulling her into his chest.

“Hey,” she says, muffled into his sweater.  

She loves this, loves him, them. How being together, falling into each other, isn’t a grand thing, it just _is_ , and it’s right. How a dirty kitchen and a radio with the antenna propped on a stack of newspapers to get the best signal and least static is the dearest place in the world.

She closes her eyes, breathes deep, lets John’s arms and the smell of peppermint be the focus of everything, lets it be bigger than the hard day, the long commute.

His hands aren’t still; one is tracing careful patterns on her lower back, the other scratching the side of her head, where her hair meets her temple. Emori used to think she couldn’t possibly know someone more touch-starved than herself, but turns out she could, and did, and John is it. He’d rather be touching her than not, his hands always reaching out for her. And not for a motive beyond wanting to reassure himself, to feel her there, with him, near him. She's more than content to be the recipient of his petting.

“I really did mean it,” he says after a while, and Emori tries to pull her mind back, thinking what he means.

Oh.

“John—”

“I did,” he says, petulance mixing with determination.

“Okay,” she sighs, and squeezes her arms around his middle. Her eyes close again, and she feels John sigh in a puff of breath on top of her head. “Thanks.”

“Welcome,” he presses a kiss to her hair.

Emori pulls back, blinking slowly. “So what’re the macarons for?”

“For Christmas,” he shrugs, like it’s obvious.

“That’s a month and a half away; I don’t think they’ll keep that long.”

He rolls his eyes but she’s smiling, and she loves that look on him. Always has.

“I was feeling festive,” he mutters, “Is that a crime?”

And of course it isn’t, it’s just ridiculous that he’s listening to Christmas music and making cookies—he’ll probably roll them in crushed candy or something equally trite once he fills them—before the first snowfall.

“It isn’t,” she says sweetly, sitting up straight, taller, and he gets the hint, comes closer so she can kiss him.

John’s the only baker she knows who doesn’t sample while cooking, just another way of him finally trusting himself. Right now, she appreciates it, because he doesn’t taste like cookies, just John. Soft and sweet and stumbling a little because he’s taller than her on the stool, his hands moving to her neck to angle her, lips firm and moving over hers, gentle and easy. And she lets him lead, her arms unwrapping from behind him to trail up his sides.

He pulls back a little, eyes closed, his forehead against hers, an unintentional smile teasing the corners of his lips.

“You taste like peppermint,” he says softly.

And Emori feels the her mouth turning up, wonders if he meant to say it aloud.

“And whose fault is that,” she whispers back, and then he kisses her again.

The times goes off, and she pouts when he pulls away, and his jaw tightens because he doesn’t want to go either. But the last time they ignored a timer, they found out that the smoke alarm was nigh impossible to turn off, and the neighbors they didn’t know they had were coming out of the woodworks to yell at them, before Emori finally stood up on a chair and yanked the whole thing from the ceiling.

The macarons are perfect.

Of course they are; Emori isn’t even a little surprised, but it doesn’t dim the soft expression of pride on John’s face when he pulls them out of the oven, sets them carefully on the stove.

Emori swivels on the stool, her head tilting. The kitchen’s quiet again, just an Perry Como song on the radio and the sounds of the street below.

_When you pine for the sunshine of a friendly gaze, for the holidays you can't beat home sweet home._

Tiny kitchen, tiny apartment, tiny cookies. Messy sink, messy blazer, messy hearts. But it works, it all works, in an frustratingly simple way.

_If you wanna to be happy in a million ways, for the holidays you can't beat home sweet home._

John’s lifting the macarons off the sheet, checking their undersides carefully to make sure they’re done, gingerly moving them over to a cooling rack. And Emori smiles to herself. She knows the sunshine of a friendly gaze, and it’s that gaze that makes home so sweet.


End file.
